Death Grip

Says Ashenoff: "You get into a cycle where you need something to get you to bed at night, then something to get you up in the morning, then something to pick you up during the day, then something to bring you down at night. And you're not getting any real time to recover because you're working all the time."

At some point, Guerrero and Benoit became acquainted with another class of drugs: anabolic steroids.

Insiders say both men used the drugs to pack on muscle. Guerrero was 5-foot-8, Benoit was 5-9, and both weighed about 220 pounds when they died.

The toxicology report on Benoit's body indicated that he was taking synthetic testosterone, a steroid. He also had the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and a prescription painkiller similar to Percocet in his system.

In a subsequent indictment of Chris and Nancy Benoit's doctor, Phil C. Astin, on July 2, federal prosecutors alleged that Astin provided a 10-month supply of steroids to Benoit every three to four weeks from May 4, 2006, through May 9, 2007, as well as prescriptions for Percocet, Xanax and other drugs. According to the indictment, Astin wrote multiple prescriptions for the Benoits on the same date, leaving some of the prescriptions undated -- a violation of federal law. Astin has pleaded not guilty.

The medical examiner who conducted Guerrero's autopsy noted that the wrestler died of heart disease, complicated by an enlarged heart and other enlarged organs that were "consistent" with a history of steroid use.

'Weaker and Weaker'

In the ring, Benoit (nicknamed "the Canadian Crippler") and Guerrero (known as "Latino Heat") sometimes performed as allies, sometimes as feuding rivals. When both men jumped from World Championship Wrestling to WWF in 2000, they formed a "heel" (or villain) alliance called "the Radicalz." At various points, one or the other would become a "face," or good guy.

In real life, they were often inseparable. For several years, they lived near each other in the Tampa area. Benoit was a vigilant friend after an intoxicated Guerrero nearly died in a car accident in early 1999; Guerrero returned the attention when Benoit underwent spinal fusion surgery on his neck in 2001.

Guerrero's accident helped strengthen his religious convictions, and he sought to bolster Benoit's faith, too, says Ashenoff. Both men had rocky marriages punctuated by separations (Nancy Benoit filed for divorce in 2003, alleging that her husband had threatened her, but she eventually withdrew the petition).

When Guerrero finally was anointed WWE champion in early 2004 (he "lost" his title four months later), the organization marketed his triumph as a redemption story. The company released a DVD recounting his life story, and later a WWE-authorized autobiography (both called "Cheating Death, Stealing Life"). In both, Guerrero claimed that he had been sober for four years.

It was a hopeful, inspiring story. But like much about wrestling, it wasn't true.

Ashenoff, Guerrero's old friend and tag-team partner, visited him regularly during his championship years and remembers being shocked by his physical and emotional decline. "I could see him getting weaker and weaker. You'd see him in the dressing room looking like a mummy in ice packs. He could barely move after a show. . . . He was taking all these painkillers and he was very paranoid. He was just an emotional basket case."

"Without a doubt," Ashenoff says, "he wasn't clean [in the months before his death]. I know that for a fact. All those years [of abuse] finally caught up to him."

WWE aired a week of "tribute" shows to Guerrero. Benoit was interviewed on one of them, and is shown sobbing uncontrollably. "I just want to tell you I love you and [will] never forget you," he said through his tears before adding, "and we'll see each other again."

Within days, WWE turned Guerrero's death into a running story line. Two weeks after Guerrero's funeral, wrestler Randy Orton was portrayed on WWE's "Smackdown" show as destroying an "Eddie Guerrero Memorial Lowrider" to initiate a feud with another wrestler. Guerrero's name was later invoked to sell a pay-per-view special called "Hell in a Cell." The angle continued for much of last year.

Publicly, Benoit played along. But he was clearly bitter about it, says Meltzer. "I've got to get out of here, but there's nowhere to go," Benoit wrote in an e-mail to Meltzer late last year.

On June 24, Benoit was supposed to perform at a WWE event in Texas. He never showed up.

In recent interviews, WWE officials say they cannot shed any light on what led to Benoit's behavior during his tragic last weekend. "We just don't know what demons seized him," says David Black, the physician who runs the WWE drug-testing program that was implemented after Guerrero's death.

Evidence at the crime scene and the official police time line of events, however, suggest deliberation, not a sudden burst of drug-fueled activity, says Jerry McDevitt, the company's general counsel.

The Georgia state medical examiner, Kris Sperry, said it is "unanswerable" whether drugs played a role in Benoit's alleged crimes.

Black and McDevitt say they do not know of a link or any pattern to the deaths of professional wrestlers over the years.

"People see things that are a coincidence that leads them to reach grand conclusions that are not supported by scientific analysis," says WWE's Black, a forensic scientist. "You have to be very cautious about this kind of information," he says.

Black and McDevitt point out that only five men -- including Guerrero and Benoit -- have died while under WWE contract during the organization's 44-year history.

Further, they dispute suggestions that drug use is widespread among the WWE's wrestlers.

When the company instituted drug tests early last year, "less than half" of its performers came back with positive results, Black says. Since then, he estimates that there have been "sporadic" cases of positive tests, involving about 15 percent of performers. Suspensions have followed for some WWE stars.

Wrestlers say that contention ignores the obvious. The WWE's testing regime "is a joke," Gilberti says. "Just look at the guys on TV. There's steroid testing?" He and others doubt that WWE, given the economic incentive to keep its stars wrestling, can be trusted to administer and enforce a rigorous drug testing program. Gilberti likens it to "putting Keith Richards in charge of doing drug tests for rock stars."

WWE says its program is comparable to other sports-related drug-detection programs (Black was involved in setting up the NFL's testing program). But WWE acknowledges that its wrestlers are given a "therapeutic exemption," enabling them to escape sanction if they produce a doctor's prescription and justification for taking a drug, such as for treating an injury.

"This is not a competitive sport," Black says. "If a worker tested positive at Nissan Motor Corporation, they would not be dismissed" for a medically justifiable reason, either.

Keller, though, points out that some wrestlers "doctor-shop" until they find a physician who will write prescriptions for the drugs they seek.

Keller is among several critics who say WWE needs a more comprehensive policy, addressing both its working conditions and the use of drugs. Until then, he thinks, wrestling might experience more problems.

This past Monday, it did. Brian Adams, the former WCW and WWE wrestler, was found dead in his Tampa-area home by his wife. While police are still investigating, the circumstances of Adams's death had many of the hallmarks of Guerrero's demise. Adams's wife reported that he stopped breathing, and police said there were no visible signs of injury or foul play.

Adams was 43.

It's time for reform, Ashenoff says. "It's almost like there's an omerta," a Mafia-like code of silence among wrestlers, he says. "You don't snitch on each other. But it's just gotten to the point where enough is enough."

"I'm one of the success stories," Mero, 47, says with an ironic laugh. "I'm not dead."